FRAGRANT LEAVES V. SWEET-SCENTED FLOWERS. 
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suitable for this industry in Kent, Surrey, and elsewhere in the 
South of England. The great European flower farms for per¬ 
fumery uses are, however, in the valley of the Var, a great 
triangular space of 115,000 acres, with Grasse at its apex and 
Nice and Cannes at each corner of its base on the Mediterranean. 
The flower, leaf, and fruit-rind harvest on this tract is a very 
large one, and the various odours are roughly prepared on the 
spot by maceration, distillation, enfleurage, or simply by ex¬ 
pression, according to kinds and quality required. 
Statistics of Flower Culture in the Valley of the Var. 
Flowers, &c. 
Weight in Tons 
Harvest Time 
Orange flowers .... 
1,800 
20th April to 31st May. 
Eoses ...... 
930 
15th Jan. to 15th April. 
Violets ..... 
347 
20th July to 10th October. 
Jasmine ..... 
147 
Aug., Sept., and Oct. 
Tuberose. 
74 
55 55 55 
Cassia ..... 
- 30 
Oct., Nov., and Dec. 
Jonquil ..... 
15 
February and March. 
Beautiful Flowers without Sentiment. 
When we go to visit the royal and noble gardens in 
England, what do we often find there ? You will find the 
most exquisite of tropical Orchids and other exotics in 
damp, warm greenhouses. You will be satiated with exquisite 
flower, form and colour, and perfume. For, after all (and 
I hope the Orchid growers will forgive me, for I am an old 
Orchid collector and grower and lover myself), Orchids are, 
in a sense, what dear old Parkinson called “ outlandish flowers ” 
—flowers having, like Leigh Hunt’s coryphees, “exquisite bodies 
but no souls.” No sentiment lingers around them, no sweet 
old-fashioned legend or tradition; their perfume even is borrowed, 
as it were, and not their very own ; and we may be said to admire 
them rather than to love them, and when satiated with their 
beauty we turn to the dear old Cloves, Carnations, Pinks, Roses, 
Violets, Musk, and scented-leaved Geraniums (Pelargoniums) of 
our grandmothers’ gardens—things primaeval, as it were, that 
peer and peasant, rich and poor alike, can grow and admire. 
Artemus Ward used to say that modern English authors would 
have had a good opening if the early poets and Shakespeare 
had not said all the good things before their time; so that we 
